Finding my way… Watching how life falls apart and comes back together.

Understanding My Purpose

by peacockpower

I have so many half finished writings in my unpublished folder-thing.

I go through these periods of being so inspired. Periods of connection to some sort of creative source. The problem is that when something doesn’t happen in the time I feel it should, self-doubt rears it’s head and I start feeling like I should just stop everything I’ve been working on and go back to being just another cog in the wheel. A nine-to-fiver (although in my part of the country it would be a seven-to-fiver).

Some of the things I’ve been feeling lately are that I wasn’t born into enough money to do the humanitarian work that I want to do. How ridiculous! I know that statement is so completely unfounded that it makes my head spin.Sometimes my ego comes up with some crazy shit.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint why saving the Ecuadorian amazon tugs at my heart. I think part of my frustration is that I’m not sure why it does. So I feel like I don’t have any tangible reason for working on it, and if I don’t have that reason, it’s easy to lose track of the goal.
I love nature – everything about it. Trees, small plants, big plants. Bugs, small ones and big ones. Arachnids, reptiles, animals.
I love it all.
I’m a treehugger, and unapologetic about it (which research has caught up with me, and says hugging trees is good for your health – so that’s cool, too).

My grandparents used to own 40 acres of woods in Kansas.
They didn’t live on it, but they used to keep horses out there when my mom was a teenager.
Their horses eventually passed on, but my grandma and grandpa would still go out there every morning to feed birds, rabbits, deer, squirrels, the fish and turtles in the pond, and whatever other critters might come around. They had long, winding paths out into the woods. That was my favorite thing about going to visit them – even though I had to wake up early to go with them to “the forty”. I would almost always see one or more deer, sometimes rabbits and turkeys, a snake now and then, spiders (whose webs we always admired and were careful not to damage their hard, beautiful work).
At some point in my younger years (10? 12? Who could remember…) I stayed with my grandparents for about a week during the summer. My grandma took me out to the forty for a hike (a hot, muggy hike). I got to go down trails that I typically missed out on.
It was so pretty, so quiet but for the birds. There were areas that were too overgrown to walk to, which I thought was so cool, that plants could get so dense.
My grandma would point out different flowers, different species of birds. She would tell funny stories from years gone by about things she’d seen, or grandpa had seen. My grandparents are some of the best people in the world.
When my grandma started having mini-strokes a few years back, the hospital bills started massing together. My grandpa couldn’t keep her at home because she needed more care than he could give, so she spent some time in a nursing home off and on – the price of which was astronomical. Despite all of us pitching in to help, my grandpa made the decision to sell the forty. I remember being so heartbroken. My brothers and I offered to buy it from them, but of course we couldn’t pay as much as the developers could.
Life is full of tough decisions, and that was one of them.
I can’t bring myself to go out there. I don’t want to see manicured lawns, and giant houses on the land I used to run around on, feed birds on, spot deer on.

Like most times I write, I figure things out as I’m writing.

I think it’s safe to say that I don’t want the amazon to be destroyed for development because corporations need more money in their pockets.
Those tribes live so much differently than we do. They have the quickly vanishing ability to live off the land around them. They can walk through their territories and recognize the plants, the animals. These people coming in to tear it all down don’t have memories of walking through the densely wooded areas with their parents and grandparents, maybe even great-grandparents.
There are so few areas of the world left untouched by man, and that breaks my heart.
I can be a bit anti-social at times, and during those times, I just want to go outside and look at the sky (if there were woods around, I’d probably be found there – but I make-do with what I have).
The amazon is so much more than just forty acres of flora and fauna. The amazon has more knowledge, medicine, diversity in it than anyone even knows. The fact that hugeswaths of it are being sold and destroyed is maddening. That people do not realize how much we depend on this part of our planet for the very air that we breathe, for the rain that we need to survive, is just mind-blowing. That people do not realize the small actions (both positive, and negative) they take here, have a big impact on this area that none of us have ever, likely, been to, is unacceptable to me.

As it turns out, my reason for wanting to save the Amazon, is that I don’t know. I know practically nothing about this wonderful place. What we, the human race, actually know about the amazon is a fraction of a percent – and we as a human race are wantonly destroying it, as if our lives do not depend on it.

I want to know more about the amazon rainforest. Scientists and biologists are desperately, and hurriedly trying to chronicle as much about this amazing place as they can – because developers are destroying it faster than they can discover it. This part of our planet is so diverse, that biologists walking through the forest discover a new plant, bug or animal almost every time they go out looking.

In my heart, if I wasn’t learning more about this extraordinary location, if I wasn’t doing whatever it is that I can to help the people there, to help the plants, the animals, the spiders weaving their webs – I would be contributing to the death of all of it – and to look at the big picture, the death of our planet.

My blue sky is directly related to the trees of the amazon. I cannot allow myself to forget that connection.

*****

If you want to help me reach my goal by contributing to my campaign, click here.

If you want to learn more and take action personally by joining the Global Seva Challenge, click here.

2 Comments to “Understanding My Purpose”

I’m also doing the Seva Amazon challenge this year and I feel the same way!!! The big why question keeps coming up. I think part of it is the unknown of what’s there and why it’s so important. My hope is that we all raise the money and get to experience this mystical place and it hammers home the why and become more outspoken and driven about the necessity of leaving the Amazon as this untouched sacred place. I find so many ppl giving me money bc they want to help me succeed but miss the greater pointer because it doesn’t impact us on the daily basis yet. This is a tough one bc ppl are so set in there ways about living a certain lifestyle. It’s hard to get ppl to take steps back. I wish you good luck and hope we meet face to face in Ecuador.

Thank you so much, Melanie! This is a tough challenge, and it so fits me that I would pick such a difficult one to jump into and then immediately become bewildered at what I’ve taken on. I’m grateful for it, as it is helping me find my voice. Granted, I feel like I’m bumbling around in search of it, but I’ve made the commitment and am glad I have. I want to be a leader for change in my community and watch it spread. It all starts in my heart.
Thank you for connecting with me and reading this. Best of luck to you as well, and I certainly hope to meet with you in Ecuador.
xx